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Friday, April 7, 2017

With so much going on in Southern California the last half of March, I may have neglected to mention some of the important results of college and junior players at Pro Circuit events around the world. I spent the past few days catching up for my monthly Aces column for the Tennis Recruiting Network and I hope I didn't miss anyone while looking at so many tournaments and scores. It certainly was a good month for junior girls on the ITF Women's Pro Circuit.

The ITA announced the schedule for this year's Summer Circuit, with over 50 tournaments to be held in locations around the country during the six weeks from June 23rd to July 31st. I wrote about this series some years back for the Tennis Recruiting Network and I know from the time I spent at Western Michigan tournament that a wide variety of players, juniors and collegians, take advantage of the opportunity to play a lot competitive matches over a short period of time. It also is an excellent opportunity for juniors to combine unofficial visits with competition. I'm not sure what the impact of the recent announcement of the UTR sponsorship will be, but one change is definitely on the horizon, with the National Championships, the culmination of all these individual tournaments, will be played at TCU this year, leaving its longtime home at the University of Indiana. See the release for all the dates and contact information, as well as comments from TCU women's coach Lee Walker about the move to Fort Worth.

In other relocation news, the New Balance High School Championships, which have been held in Boston for its first three years, is moving to the Weil Tennis Academy in Ojai California for this July's tournament. See the event's Facebook page for more information.

I received an email today from Ben Crandell, longtime agent at IMG, saying that he was leaving the company. Crandell, whose clients included, among others, Vera Zvonareva, the Harrison brothers, Heather Watson, Hyeon Chung and Michael Mmoh, had been with IMG 13 years. Although the email didn't specify what he's doing next, I hope it still involves tennis. For those of us on the junior circuit, he was always great fun to talk to and his clients had nothing but praise for him.